There have been many attempts over the years to communicate with animals. In the area of language, many people have taught an animal to recognize certain human word commands. In rare cases, animals are reported to have learned up to one hundred human words. Despite their apparent ability to associate some words in human language with objects or actions, however, no animal has been able to communicate back to humans with irrefutable meaning. More recently, researchers have provided animals with computers and printed symbols with which they can respond. However, these responses have been unstructured so that their meaning is not clear. While researchers have attributed certain meaning to them, it has been impossible to know it that meaning came from the animal or the researcher.
The ISL provides a structured language, along with its enabling apparatus and method, through which an animal or human) can respond with unequivocal meaning.